Die Set

I had a dual purpose for these cards. I needed to create a card with an old kit or subscription for an Instagram hop and I needed sample cards for my next giveaway. So I created these three cards with the Spellbinders Large Die of the Month for November 2021. It’s a slimline die set and it’s called Christmas Foliage Strip and Borders. It consists of four curved slimline border dies and layering dies for the Christmas-themed border. See the labeled die set below.

Colors

For my colors, I searched for Christmas palettes in the Color Cube, Volume 1 and found Palette 173. See the table below for how I mapped the colors to Distress Oxide Ink Pads.

Using a cohesive color palette helps the die cut shapes to stand out. I used two gradients on all cards: Tattered Rose to Saltwater Taffy and Tumbled Glass to Bundled Sage.

Sentiments

The sentiments are all from the Pinkfresh Studio Christmas Sentiments Stamp and Die Set. This stamp and die set is a bit of a mystery. It was designed by Kaitlin Shaeffer and I got it as part of a Pinkfresh class kit. But I can’t find any trace of it online, so it may not have been released publicly.

I stamped the sentiments with a gradient from Distress Oxide Bundled Sage to Tumbled Glass.

Christmas Foliage Strip

I die cut the foliage strip three times out of Hammermill and three times out of Accent Opaque. Then I did the same with the debossing border. I stacked the strips and lightly ink blended on two of them from the foliage side with Distress Oxide inks. Then I glued the strips onto the cardstock pieces with the debossed border. All the dies fit perfectly with each other.
Then I used the same Distress Oxide Inks to ink blend on more Hammermill Cardstock and cut out the botanical die cuts. I glued them to the white foliage strip.

I cut down the cardstock pieces, so they’d fit on a slimline 8” by 3 ½” card and staggered them with foam tape. Finally I added the sentiment with lots more foam tape and scattered some Pinkfresh Studio Ombre Glitter Drops across the card.

Inset Border

I used the inset border die with the debossed border die, to create two staggered bands of color across my card. To do this, I cut the dies twice from Hammermill and twice from Accent Opaque and stacked them. Then I cut just the debossed border from Hammermill and ink blended my two gradients on those pieces. I used foam tape to mount the openwork cardstock pieces over the ink blended gradients.

Then I cut my two cardstock and foam tape panels to size and mounted them on slimline card. Finally I added the sentiment and some Pinkfresh Studio Ombre Glitter Drops.

Lace Border

I die cut the lace border die three times from Hammermill and three times from Accent Opaque and stacked them. I ink blended my gradients onto two of these pieces. Then I cut them down, so I could stagger them on a slimline card. I mounted them with foam tape. Finally I added the sentiment and some Pinkfresh Studio Ombre Glitter Drops.